C. Everett Koop, the stern but grandfatherly surgeon general who preached to the masses through the 1980s to practice safe sex and stop smoking, became a multimillionaire Tuesday by riding the hottest sermon of the 1990s--getting wired. Koop's 11% stake in a consumer health-care Web site called Drkoop.com suddenly became worth $56 million after the Austin, Tex.-based Internet company went public. Drkoop.com Inc., which lost $9 million last year, closed at $16.44 on Nasdaq, up $7.

WASHINGTON - Dr. C. Everett Koop, who as U.S. surgeon general in the 1980s led high-profile campaigns to highlight the dangers of smoking and to mobilize the nation against an emerging AIDS epidemic, has died. He was 96. Koop died Monday at his home in New Hampshire, Susan Wills, a colleague at Koop's Dartmouth Institute, told the Associated Press. The cause was not given. Unlike his predecessors and many of his successors, who were largely figureheads, Koop initiated a new era of influence for surgeons general by turning the post into a national bully pulpit.

In uniform, in federal service, C. Everett Koop was a bearded bear in shoulder boards and braid. In retirement, Koop wears two-piece suits and oversized bow ties and lapel pins, and they make the man appear smaller, less forbidding. In his transition from title to person, home is no longer red-brick government quarters. Koop, like ordinary folk, has a new, huge mortgage on a small house in Maryland. The beard stays.

February 25, 2013 | Thomas H. Maugh II and Marlene Cimons, Special to the Los Angeles Times

In the mid-1980s, the emerging AIDS epidemic was a high-profile target of vocal conservatives. Politicians and the religious right called for sweeping measures against those diagnosed with AIDS, including quarantine of patients, mandatory screening of homosexuals for the AIDS virus and a host of other measures that would victimize patients and keep the disease and the diseased hidden from public light. But they did not reckon with Dr. C. Everett Koop, the religious and conservative surgeon general of the United States appointed by President Reagan.

President Bush today announced his selection of Dr. Antonia Novello, an abortion opponent who is deputy director of the government's National Institute of Child Health, to be surgeon general. She would be the first woman to hold the post. If confirmed by the Senate, she would succeed C. Everett Koop, the outspoken pediatric surgeon who became perhaps the best known figure in American medicine for his outspoken opposition to smoking and his support for using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.

While we may remember Koop as the man who stood proudly in his stark white admiral's uniform ready to lead his fleet of hospitals into battle against the nation's health problems, his authority in the Reagan Administration is perhaps better symbolized by his first day at work. Told to report to a little office, starkly empty except for a desk and chair, he busies himself cleaning the dusty room until, "hours later," he is finally introduced to his new boss. Things spiral down from there.

Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan named Dr. James O. Mason, assistant secretary for health, as acting surgeon general to replace the departing Dr. C. Everett Koop. Mason, formerly director of the Atlanta-based federal Centers for Disease Control, will serve in both capacities until Koop's term formally expires in October. Sullivan is expected to name a permanent surgeon general at that time.

President Clinton has won over former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to his health care package, Newsweek magazine reported. When the President unveils his health proposal Wednesday, Koop will be seated next to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and White House officials hope the presence of the former Ronald Reagan appointee will lend credibility to Clinton's health care reform bill, the magazine said.

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop relinquished his claim on a burial at Arlington National Cemetery but also lashed out at Republicans who questioned whether he deserved the honor. President Clinton had granted an exemption in 1994 to allow Koop to be buried at Arlington.

C. Everett Koop, the stern but grandfatherly surgeon general who preached to the masses through the 1980s to practice safe sex and stop smoking, became a multimillionaire Tuesday by riding the hottest sermon of the 1990s--getting wired. Koop's 11% stake in a consumer health-care Web site called Drkoop.com suddenly became worth $56 million after the Austin, Tex.-based Internet company went public. Drkoop.com Inc., which lost $9 million last year, closed at $16.44 on Nasdaq, up $7.

Andy Grove, chairman of microprocessor behemoth Intel Corp., and C. Everett Koop, former U.S. surgeon general, may seem unlikely collaborators, but Tuesday they will share the podium in San Francisco to launch Intel's Internet Health Initiative. "It's one area that touches the lives of virtually everyone, and at the same time it's underrepresented on the Net," said Steven McGeady, vice president and director of the initiative.

The public health community broke an internal impasse and sent its clearest signal yet that the tobacco industry should make much deeper concessions than it has accepted so far and that there is deep skepticism about granting tobacco companies any legal protection from future lawsuits. Physicians C. Everett Koop and David A.

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said any money from congressional action against tobacco companies should be spent fighting smoking and the diseases it causes rather than research, as President Clinton has proposed. Clinton has suggested boosting science and health research, in particular cancer research. Koop welcomed the prospect of money from tobacco companies to make up for what he said are $100 billion a year in costs to society from smoking, but he urged caution in spending

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop relinquished his claim on a burial at Arlington National Cemetery but also lashed out at Republicans who questioned whether he deserved the honor. President Clinton had granted an exemption in 1994 to allow Koop to be buried at Arlington.

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said he opposes any tobacco legislation that grants cigarette makers special legal protections, a position that may pose new obstacles to efforts to enact tobacco legislation based on the $368.5-billion national tobacco settlement. Koop made it clear he is still willing to negotiate, saying he might consider legal protections "if everything we want on public health" is in a final settlement.

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said any money from congressional action against tobacco companies should be spent fighting smoking and the diseases it causes rather than research, as President Clinton has proposed. Clinton has suggested boosting science and health research, in particular cancer research. Koop welcomed the prospect of money from tobacco companies to make up for what he said are $100 billion a year in costs to society from smoking, but he urged caution in spending

U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop told about 2,500 school administrators meeting in Anaheim that students and teachers with AIDS pose no danger to public health. "From a public health point of view, there is no reason to exclude such a person," Koop told members of the National Assn. of Secondary School Principals at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Small world. President Clinton's motorcade was slowing to a stop outside Alley's General Store when it passed a church where former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was leaving Sunday services. While Clinton and his family ducked into the store for coffee and blueberry muffins--a chalkboard outside advertised "Free coffee for all presidents, ID required"--Koop and two friends found a White House aide, asked to see the president and were ushered inside.

Dr. C. Everett Koop, U.S. surgeon general during the Reagan and Bush administrations, will visit Cal State Northridge Friday, joining former professor Robert C. Horn in a noon book signing. Horn's book, "How Will They Know if I'm Dead?" is an account of his and his family's struggle with Lou Gehrig's disease. Koop wrote the preface to the book. The disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, was named after the New York Yankees baseball great who was its most famous victim.